214. There is no direct evidence of the sex of the chorus in the Octavia. In Greek drama they would almost certainly have been women.
215. The diction is wholly un-Senecan. There is no straining after epigram; the dialogue, though not lacking point (e.g. the four lines 185-8, or 451-60), does not bristle with it, and is far less rhetorical and more natural. The chorus confines itself to anapaests, is simpler and far more relevant. The all-pervading Stoicism is the one point they have in common.
216. The imitation of Lucan in 70, 71 'magni resto nominis umbra,' is also strong evidence against the Senecan authorship.
217. Probus, vita. 'A. Persius Flaccus natus est pridie non. Dec. Fabio Persico, L. Vitellio coss.' Hieronym. ad ann. 2050=34 A.D. 'Persius Flaccus Satiricus Volaterris nascitur.' Where not otherwise stated the facts of Persius' life are drawn from the biography of Probus.
218. Quint, vii. 4, 40; Tac. Ann. xv. 71.
219. Suet. de Gramm. 23.
220. Bassus was many years his senior—addressed as senex in Sat. vi. 6, written late in 61 or early in 62 A.D.—and perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, 79 A. D. Cp. Schol. ad Pers. vi. 1.
221. Lucan was five years his junior. Cp. p. 97.
222. Cp. Tac. Ann. xiv. 19; Dial. 23; Quint. x. 1. 102.
223. This friendship lasted ten years, presumably the last ten of Persius' life; cp. Prob. vit.